The Pack..

[Tim Sheens]

Tamou (necessarily) lifting his game has been the biggest change for mine and he made the difference when he returned for his second stint last night. Maybe it took losing Utoikamanu for him to realise that he needed to truly lead.

Joffa has also been enormous pretty well every week. Not dominating or standing out, rather doing everything that he needs to, such as waiting for offloads. Seeing him get into dummy half to be involved in getting the ball out for the quick try scoring shift to our right last week was decisive in getting the win.

Lucy has been consistently good, but it all starts in the middle and not having Peachey causing disruption there has been similarly noticeable this past fortnight.

 

[Tim Sheens]

I noticed last night that we seemed to concentrated more on locking the ball up to stop them offloading at the expense of PCM.

Yeah, but wish Garner and Hastings had been more adept at such on our try line.

 

[Needaname]

I noticed last night that we seemed to concentrated more on locking the ball up to stop them offloading at the expense of PCM.

Wouldn’t you when a late Mansour offload leads to a try 70m away?

 

[Tim Sheens]

Also a good effort considering that we played on Monday and a 5 day turnaround is an extra hurdle to overcome.

 

[Needaname]

Tamou (necessarily) lifting his game has been the biggest change for mine and he made the difference when he returned for his second stint last night. Maybe it took losing Utoikamanu for him to realise that he needed to truly lead.

Joffa has also been enormous pretty well every week. Not dominating or standing out, rather doing everything that he needs to, such as waiting for offloads. Seeing him get into dummy half to be involved in getting the ball out for the quick try scoring shift to our right last week was decisive in getting the win.

Lucy has been consistently good, but it all starts in the middle and not having Peachey causing disruption there has been similarly noticeable this past fortnight.

Could say Tamou has stepped up, you could say the forwards around him have also which makes Tamou more effective.
I think collectively the forwards have stepped up as a result of the loss of Steffano. Potentially due to his rise into the starting side some of the forwards around him may of taken a step back.
The other player is Musgrove. Hampered with a Lisfranc injury last year which I believe is similar to what Russell Packer had the last few years, it’s a form of fracture in the foot and I can imagine it’s hard to get going and to know how well you recover from it with or without surgery, he along with Joffa have been good for us as presence in the middle and it’s enabled Twal to not be reduced to just the clean up man.

 

[WT2K]

Doing better running the footy but teams are still absolutely rolling us up the middle, Souths and Eels included. Both of them got up the field with ease when they felt like it, big area of improvement needed there

Agree, thought they rolled up the field too easy. Definitely needs to be worked on. They did match em tho with ball in hand.

 

[Needaname]

Agree, thought they rolled up the field too easy. Definitely needs to be worked on. They did match em tho with ball in hand.

As Balmain boy mentioned, we are probably last in the league for % of metres conceded to those gained. In saying that though we are also least in the league for missed tackles.
What we are lacking is kick return meters, we are well last in the league in this stat and it shows when we really struggle to get over the advantage line when starting our sets. Kenny is the go to metre man off a kick as he beats or carry’s the first man and that is hugely important for us. But following that we just seem to get manhandled way to much.
The pack of South Sydney has become a strong factor for them with forward leaders Arrow, Kalomatungi, Murray and Tatola are massive for them in this space but obviously the big factor is NSW hooker cook, we may have done a great job shutting him down individually but he still delivers a great platform for his forwards to get on the front foot each play, you can’t really do much to shut that down. Maybe nullifing Cooks running game opened up more space for his forwards. Potentially.
I don’t want to go against the praise for Liddle and be highly critical he works his but off and has a huge game but it’s evident that from dummy half we struggle to get our forwards over the advantage line. Jacko actually moved into dummy half a couple of times even with Liddle standing beside him, you could sense he felt the set was going nowhere and he needed that one forward to hit the ball flat and fast at this stage Liddle is lacking that understanding of the game.
Api is a huge signing for us in this regard. But that’s next year.

 

[69-05-41]

After their lazy marker defence the previous week limiting the minutes that Musgrove and Miikaele were on together seemed to be part of the plan. Completion rate and tackle effectiveness stats do not suggest our pack was dominated. Looks like our backpedaling defensive style was kind of effective by preventing offloads at the expense of PCM.

 

[InBenjiWeTrust]

IMHO, Michaele needs to spend a few games in the NSW cup, ATM Dias > Michaele.🐅

 

[ElleryHanley]

Two weeks running the forward pack has aimed up and if not bettered at least equaled the oppositions pack of forwards

Twal 121m
Musgrove 112m
Tamou 159m
Ofahengaue 107m
Leilua 100m
Seyfarth 76m
Mikaele 28m

4 of the starting pack + Twal over 100m is laying a great platform for the halves to work off..

Forwards win matches backs determine the score..

Massive wraps for this unit.. keep it up..Utoikamanu still to come back..

The pack has improved as Hastings is barking at them non stop...lining blokes up...and telling them where to run. MASSIVE difference.

Before most of them went missing / had a bludge 3 weeks a month.

Now, they are being yelled at to line up.

Massive difference a 'voice' makes.

 

[Blake]

I think we average the least amount of metres per set out of all the teams in the comp. Around 34m per set, pretty awful. It all comes back to crap service from dummy half and players catching the ball standing still and then staying to run. Our players don't have the skills to run hard, catch the ball (with no forward passes) and storm into the opposition.

This and our complete inability to dominate the ruck makes it almost impossible to win. Low metres, poor play the ball speed and kicking from well inside our half, it's just embarassing. Combined with us being the only team that doesn't use line speed but again prefers to stand still, it's just chaos

There were many times last night that Liddle passed the ball quickly off the ground and the defence were right on top of us as we got the ball. Many times they must have been a long way inside the 10, but it was not shown on Fox.

 

[upthetigers]

I thought our pack got physically dominated last night. But they kept hanging in there and working hard despite Souths rolling through us with the ball and driving us back in defence. Continuing to take the fight despite losing it played a big part in keeping us in it. They showed heart.

The way the first set of the game played out I thought it was going to be a long night

 

[Tim Sheens]

IMHO, Michaele needs to spend a few games in the NSW cup, ATM Dias > Michaele.🐅

Other than through Covid, he can't play until round 10 anyway.

 

[Demps]

Mikaele just making up numbers.
More than likely gone at the end of the year.

Good luck to the brother.

Noticed in the victory celebrations , he was very distant and did not appear to be partaking.

Says a lot IMO.

 

[Tim Sheens]

The way the first set of the game played out I thought it was going to be a long night

Yeah, Seyfarth didn't spin or twist at the line, getting folded and pushed backwards on the second tackle. That put us on the back foot field position wise through the early sets.

 

[Mossman]

Hastings bark and controlling is massive for us totally giving us more energy.
Very happy with him

 

[Telltails]

Michaele actually made some critical tackles in the game. One on Cody Walker that if he hadn't made it would have ended up a try under the posts. I found it difficult to pick out a player who didn't contribute in some way to that win - obviously some more than others.

 

[Mighty_Tiger]

Our forwards didn't dominate, we made an extra 46 runs for only 61mtrs more than Souths.
Souths despite doing 46 runs less made 24mtrs more post contact meters than us.
We actually made nearly 2mths less a run 7.87 to 9.65mtrs.

Tamou was our forward leader & only one we can say did dominate the others didn't, Tamou is in great form that I hope his stay is extended.

We won because of our defensive structure & attitude last night mixed to holding the ball, we had someone directing us, completed our sets.

 

[balmain boy]

The pack has improved as Hastings is barking at them non stop...lining blokes up...and telling them where to run. MASSIVE difference.

Before most of them went missing / had a bludge 3 weeks a month.

Now, they are being yelled at to line up.

Massive difference a 'voice' makes.

This was one of my consistent criticisms of Brooks. He never organised the team, yelling at forwards etc. Hastings having the reins improves us ten fold

 

[getagrip]

IMHO, Michaele needs to spend a few games in the NSW cup, ATM Dias > Michaele.🐅

If Dias is having a go in NSW Cup, then he deserves a spot in front of Mikaele.